Boston Tea Party
The English in Great Britain or England liked to drink tea. The East India Company had a monopoly on the buying and selling of tea. There was a tax placed on the tea from Parliament. Then the tea was brought on English ships to the colonies where another tax was placed on it. The colonist were only to buy tea from English ships even though it was cheaper from the Dutch who did not have the high taxes.
Later the East India Company was having a difficult time competing with the smuggled tea. So Parliament lowered the tax that the East India Company had to pay if the tea was sent to the colonist.
At the same time Parliament passed the Townshend Act. This made the colonist still madder at Parliament. The British thought that the colonist should help pay for the British troops who were stationed there to protect the colonist.
The colonist felt that it was not fair that Parliament was passing laws without the colonist having an input into the making of any law by a group which was located across the world in another continent.
The colonist had their own assemblies that made laws for the colonies and these were the governing bodies that the colonist felt had the right to make decisions for them.
When the tea arrived in Boston the people refused to allow the tea to be unloaded. The people wanted the tea to be returned to England without any taxes being paid on it. The governor refused to send the tea back thus making the problem worse.
On a cold night men met and decided to set a guard of 25 men to watch the ship to make sure that it was not unloaded.
The crowd became very loud against the tax and before long a group of men (some of them dressed like Indians) attacked the ship and poured the chests of tea overboard.
What would happen in the next few years would change the fate of the colonist forever.